'reagan 2.0'： Trump Economic Moves Draws Praise

Trump's economy keeps chugging along and defying predictions of all those gloomy naysayers. Darren Botello joins us live now from the White House to give us the latest. Hi. Hi, good afternoon, Taylor. A big I told you so from the White House this afternoon. A lot of those experts thought that the economy was going to tank with those tariffs, but that's not what we saw. That's not what the numbers showed at the end of the year. As you know, we saw a banner year on Wall Street wrapping up this year. It was on a tear. The S&P 500 just hit its 39th record close, the longest winning streak since November. And this rally is backed by real growth, with the U.S. economy in the third quarter growing by 4.3 percent and November inflation going in lower than expected. 4.3 GDP yesterday. It was two points more than they thought. People were shocked. The tariffs did it. Tariffs came through us. I said they would. Great numbers, great financial numbers. On the trade front, the president's agenda is delivering a massive windfall. The new data shows the U.S. has brought in more than $200 billion in tariff revenue this year. Families are also getting relief at the pump, seeing the cheapest December gas prices since 2020. Four straight weeks now, the national average has continued to decline. We keep knocking out multi-year lows. We're now at the lowest since March of 2021. And as you indicate, our data points out gasoline averaging now just $2.78 a gallon nationally. It was the cheapest Christmas since 2020. For those who thought consumers would foot the bill and shop less, retail spending is actually up 4 percent this holiday season. Doge continuing to cut waste, trying to get to that trillion-dollar mark. But still, we have $38 trillion on the table, still with the national debt. Taylor? Darren, really appreciate your time. All right, Griff, so jump in here. We were talking last hour about sort of all of the tailwinds that really set us up for a strong 2026, but not everything is rosy. We've talked about, you know, a very cautious consumer this year. How are you thinking about that? Well, you know, Taylor, that's cautious. That's being smart. We're broadcasting. People are paying attention, particularly on this channel, which gives the best economic advice and analysis that anyone can get. But at the same time, you know, to Darren's point, it was widespread speculation that there was going to be, at best, an economic downturn, at worst, probably a recession. Either way, things are just going to suck because of these tariffs, $200 billion coming in. But let me just tell you something. I was talking about this a little earlier on Fox & Friends. We're talking about the economic forecast. What's 2026 going to bring? And a border patrol agent that I met over the years down in Texas texted me while I was on the air. His name's Billy. I'm not going to give him the last name to get him in trouble. But he said, hey, just so you know, this morning in New Caney, Texas, I paid $2.07 to fill my tank up. That's tangible. You can take that and put it in the bank. And at the end of the day, the fact that you have this 4.3% GDP growth, and then, of course, with inflation trickling down, not where the Fed wants it at 2%, but definitely on the downside. You know, James Freeman in The Wall Street Journal said that the growth of this economy is the most under-reported story of 2025. And with the direction things are going, when you have comments like Kevin Hassett and Howard Ludnick saying, listen, this is the early good sign. 2026 is going to be the payoff. You have to wonder, maybe they're right. You're nodding along, Jerry. I'm an optimist. I mean, this is what I see, that we've got lots of good news baked into this economy, much of it being delivered next year. So it's next year you're going to start getting those $1,000, $2,000 refunds. It's next year that Social Security recipients will start paying lower taxes. It's next year that the taxes on wages and tips go down. There's a lot baked in. Everybody talks about what's there for the big companies. Corporate America is going to do so well under Trump. But look at people, real people out there. They're going to get benefits too. 4.3% GDP. Winning. Hello. And did Wall Street get it right? Just continuing a theme that I started in the first block of this show in the 12 o'clock hour. Consensus was 3.3%. They got it wrong again. Atlanta Fed GDP, Lou, comes out. As of two days ago, fourth quarter estimates are still 3%. So that is good. I'll take the over on that still. James Freeman, I love his commentary. He's like you, mostly an optimist. Elon Musk. And I dog him a lot of times. But Elon Musk saying double-digit economic growth is possible moving forward. I doubt that. I think that's being a bit bombastic. But I would tell you, all the fundamentals are lying up. And Griff put his finger on it. Tangible benefits are going to show up in 2026. We talk about the refund checks potentially. We talk about what I believe is going to be the biggest unexpected catalyst. And that's real wage growth accelerating so that it hits not just because you got an extra tax benefit. You're actually getting paid more. Because Taylor and I, you've talked in it. We both talked about this. Corporate America, right? The big companies have profits that are overflowing right now at records. They have the room and the buffer to keep paying higher wages. Can I just jump in on something you said there? So wage growth is growing faster than the price of homes. So on that basis, we're seeing a prediction of 14% growth of existing home sales for next year. That would be a breakthrough year. That comes from the National Association of Realtors' Chief Economist. I hope he's right. I'll come to you on just one other stat from Larry Kudlow, where he was telling me to look in the PCE report, where it looks at nominal wages. The last report we got, nominal wages were up 5% in the trailing 12 months, year over year. And so if you think about inflation at 3-ish, that is real wages that are still positive by about 2%. But I think the question is, people still feel like after being underwater, a little extra 2% is great, but I still feel like I'm digging myself out of a hole and I want to be on top of ground, not still in the hole. Well, that's why the messaging finally was right about a week ago when Trump had his speaking engagement, when he spoke. He was focusing on, look, this is real wage growth. We're not saying that you're perfect and you feel like you have all this money, but we are finally growing on a real wage growth basis compared to the past basically four or five years when we weren't growing. It comes down to the GDP number. I think that tells you basically everything you need to know. Now, does this set a higher bar for next year? Absolutely. Next year has to come in good because if you have all this GDP growth, 4.3% year over year, that means we have to even hit the hurdle even more next year. And when it comes to the GDP number, I look at Trump as basically Reagan on steroids. He's a Reagan 2.0. Lowering taxes. We're still giving out checks to the veterans. We're maybe giving out tariff checks. We're printing still money. So all of this is so beneficial to the overall, you know, liquidity I was talking about in the first segment to the economy, which just keeps everything going on an extreme basis. Are you confident that all of that, which is great, is not inflationary? And Larry Kudlow would say, yes, supply side economics, all of the stimmies, that's demand. But if you also boost the supply side, then we're equal. So here's the counterbalance to it. That can be inflationary. But if you look at what is holding inflation up right now, it's all structural things. Health care, real estate, energy. Those are things that the administration are addressing. So they're going to be deflationary forces heading into 2026. So even if you get some inflation coming from more spending on consumers, it's going to be balanced, just like we've seen with AI. AI is the great deflator. It is making things much more affordable. And no one is factoring that in. If we get a real estate rebound, I said this last week, real estate dragged down GDP by 0.2%. So if we didn't have that drag, we would have had 4.5% GDP growth, if not even more. That's a catapult into 2026, if we can get that again. On that note, Griffin, also, the things that are most inflationary is where the government's most involved. That's the problem. Lou's nailing it. Look, in 1981, the average age of a first-time homebuyer was 29. Last year, it was 40. If, as Jerry says, real wages outpace in 2026 as housing prices come down, and we're putting 29-year-olds in their first-time homes, that's going to be, Luke, the message that the White House needs to drill into. And that's going to be undeniable at that point. But, Jerry, you've done a lot of reporting on housing. And Dagan, who usually sits on my left, would say the math is simple. Prices have to come down. It is that plain and simple. And I'm one of those people where I sold at a loss because I just needed to move. But you're not going to sell at these sky-high prices with mortgage rates still over 6%. So I'm going to play with you a little bit on that. Because I understand that there's a huge proportion of Americans who have mortgage rates on their current loan that is 3%, super, super low. But, you know, real life occurs. You retire. You want to move. You don't want to be in New York City because you think it's falling apart. So you sell. And maybe because you've been in that house for a long time, you're getting a lot of capital out of that, right? You're getting a lot of money out of that that you can deploy to the next house. So I think people make decisions. You have an extra child, maybe two. You can't fit in your silly New York City apartment. You have to have something bigger. I think it's way oversold, this idea that boomers are never going to get out of their houses. I don't think that's true at all. We see vacation homes continue to sell. Those people are doing something. I'll build on that too because I think in years past, people have been reluctant to sell because the economic outlook elsewhere wasn't good. There was nothing to counterbalance it. Now, if you tell me the economy is doing much better, you were a perfect example. You sold for a loss because you saw more things optimistically elsewhere in your life. Real estate wasn't the only asset that was up for you.